I’ve been thinking about the ways in which streetart and urban planning/design can be merged, and so why not invite people to write their thoughts on their ideal Montreal? Why not play around a little with the public consultation or charrette process a little?

In other news, my Etsy shop is back up and running again, and now updated with brand spanking new stuff! If you’d like to get your hands on an Elmaks original piece, my dear readers, then now’s the time…

More to come on the Etsy shop and the prints that I’m working on…

UPDATE: Had a little time to take a look at how the “Ideal City” book is progressing. Thought I’d scan in a couple images of what’s been written so far. I’m pretty enthused at the fact that people have written in their opinions of how they see the city… of course, since the book is open to the public, crudely drawn penises do show up.

From the article:
“Last March at the Artlab Gallery in Toronto, a show opened to great buzz – but not for any traditional artist. The gallery walls were ﬁlled with art from the city streets, ranging from graffiti to stenciling, from beer-can sculptures to life-size Val Kilmer cut-outs. Curious Torontonians packed the gallery to capacity early, eager to catch a glimpse of the artists who had been secretly altering the city’s streetscapes. Artlab gave legitimacy and artistic stature to what more conservative city groups had cast as examples of vandalism and property rights violations. Meanwhile, local government has been renewing its efforts to combat vandalism and street art, raising the question: who owns Toronto’s public spaces and should a city accept or even exalt street art?”

What are folks’ thoughts on this matter? If you ask me, streetart and graffiti are not going away. They are the world’s first truly international art movements and their DIY ethos has brought about a wide range of fascinating and beautiful mutations of the genre.

What graf and street art is going against are the forces of staticism. If you ask me, those who want to preserve a certain image or structure against all oncomers can be the most dangerous forces at play within any city.

Last month I posted pictures of street-art created by Uliveandyouburn out of traffic pylons…

It seems that Raleigh, NC police have filed charges against the artist, even though officials from the construction company which unwittingly supplied his materials have stated that they greatly enjoyed his work.

article is Here
“Hamlin Associates, the construction company whose barrels were turned into a monster, doesn’t want to press charges.

[quote]
“We’ve had a fair amount of vandalism, but never anyone turn it into art,” Company President Steven Hussey said. “I actually thought it was pretty neat.”

Hussey said the value of the publicity his company has received is well above the $365 cost of the traffic barrels that Carnevale used.

“It’s been positive publicity for us,” he said. “If we’d known he’d do that good of a work, we’d have given him the barrels.”

Carnevale said he’s weighing Hussey’s offer to reconstruct the monster for the company’s offices in Climax, N.C., possibly for pay. Meanwhile, at least three Facebook support groups have formed to support Carnevale, including “Don’t Charge Joseph Carnevale,” boasting more than 800 members.”
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As a fan of both street art and urban exploration who has done my share of dodging police and security-guards in my younger days I’ve gotta say that I really appreciate Uliveandyouburn’s work. I personally have a hate-on for the types who scrawl messy tags on shop doors or scratch their names into windows. Street art and graffiti should improve its settings rather than detracting from them, and there’s plenty of awesome and clever stuff out there.

The Raleigh PD should drop this case. If this case does work its way to court, then the only other acceptable option should be for the City of Raleigh to give this guy a community service term working with road and highway safety to design more pieces like this. After all, he seems to have made more people slow down in construction zones as a result of his streetart creations than any pylons or warning signs ever did.